The present invention relates in general to infant seats used in vehicles, and, more in particular, to an infant carrier that during a collision both absorbs kinetic energy of the infant and keeps an infant within the carrier by deforming while the infant moves from an inclined position to an upright position. The carrier forms by folding its components together.
Taking a newly born infant home from the hospital in the family car is a wonderful experience. Not unusually, the mother sits in the front seat and cradles the infant in her arms. Though soothing to both the mother and infant, this method of transport is very perilous. With the rapid deceleration of a panic stop or front-end collision, the infant's inertia can cause the infant to be torn from the mother's arms and thrust against the dashboard or windshield with tragic results.
Infant carriers for use in automobiles have evolved from merely things for convenient transport to seats offering the larger infant protection in the event of an accident.
The safer infant carriers have an inclined bed to support the infant with the infant facing to the rear of the vehicle. The infant is restrained to the bed by a belt harness. The bed provides substantial support along the entire head and back of an infant to resist inertial loads of the infant resulting from collisions at the front of the vehicle. These carriers are held in place by a lap belt. There are a number of outstanding such seats, but they have notable problems. First, they do not absorb enough of the kinetic energy of the newborn infant during an accident, resulting in high decelerating forces on the infant. Second, they are expensive and cannot readily be provided by a hospital. Third, an infant can slide back out of them during rapid deceleration unless an easily misused belt-harness system is properly fastened. Fourth, they cannot be tailored to the size and mass of the infant, which changes dramatically in the first six months of life. And, they must be especially padded with energy absorbing material in the area of the infant's head to cushion the head.
The kinetic energy of the infant must be absorbed during the deceleration. A padded but rigid carrier forces this energy to be absorbed largely by the infant. Available seats produce newborn infant head and chest accelerations in the life threatening limit in standardized 30 mph Government tests.
Unfortunately, even these carriers are often not available at the time that the infant leaves the hospital on the trip home. If a safe and inexpensive carrier were available, it could be provided by the hospital, and the incidence of tragic injury reduced.
Infants, particularly newborns, have soft bone structure making the attachment of restraining belts difficult and cumbersome. Misuse can result in the infant moving out of the safety of the carrier.
An infant grows rapidly in its first few months of life. A safe carrier should be designed so that the carrier crushes, and therefore, optimally protects the infant as it grows from five to twenty pounds.
Infant carriers in the form of traveling cribs made of cardboard and folded together by their user have been proposed. U.S. Pat. No. 3,487,479 to Grooms discloses one example. The Grooms crib provides no crash protection. Infant carriers have absorbed some of the kinetic energy of a crash with energy absorbing material. U.S. Pat. No. 4,067,608 to Von Wimmersperg is an example. While the Von Wimmersperg construction absorbs energy, it does not react inertial loads as much as possible with the infant's body in preference to the head, and does not take advantage of permanent deformation as an energy absorbing agency. U.S. Pat. No. 4,501,032 to Heath shows a bassinet that rotates a bed from horizontal to inclined at a predetermined acceleration. But Heath does not effectively load the body preferentially, absorb energy or use permanent deformation as the energy absorbing agency. None of these devices minimize acceleration on vital body parts.